In Memoriam

This afternoon I attended a Celebration of Life party for a dear friend of mine and someone I used to work for.  I was a little hesitant about going.  The beach traffic heading to Santa Monica was going to be a bear!  Well, that's true too.  But the real reason I was a little worried was because I've been crying all week about my Dad and we never did a service for him, per his request.  But what I heard was beautiful and touching.

I heard the story of a man who loved his wife.  A couple who was so united in their love for each other that it touched everyone who was in their presence.  Every wonderful thing said about my friend Mary could be said about her husband Ken.  To be around them was to be filled with love.

These two people were so instrumental to my growth.  When I started working for them, I was recently out of my past relationship.  I had no idea how much it had affected me.  I was battered and bruised, not only from my relationship with my Ex, but from my relationship with my Ex Boss.  I was emotionally drained from taking care of those two men for several years. 

But they brought me into their inner circle. They trusted me.  They praised me and thought I was pretty terrific.And they let me know it.  I needed to know my value because I hadn't yet discovered it.  That laid the groundwork for a lot of healing for me.  But it also gave me the confidence to go teach when I was asked to do that.  And it let me know that someone praising me and telling me how much they appreciate me is a good thing.  Now I have a boyfriend who does that.

So I really owe them a lot.  And being surrounded by people who feel the exact same way about them as I feel about them was terrific.  Even though Mary has now passed, you can't think of Mary without thinking about Ken.  They were such a powerful force. 

One of the actors who worked on the pilot that I worked on with them talked about the lunches they'd share together because they always ran to the same supermarket at lunch time.

Someone talked about Mary encouraging her to write and telling this woman to just "bang it out."  Just get the draft done because there will always be time to rewrite.

Someone else talked about how not into organized religion she was and that reminded me of my Dad because they were so full of spirit and generosity without subscribing to any dogma.

And everyone talked about her laugh.  Her infectious laugh that just told you everything about her: she didn't take it all too seriously, she had a great sense of humor and that laugh came from a very deep place that was one hundred percent certain about being happy.

She was one amazing woman.